Querétaro Swine Flu Deaths DOUBLE Overnight!

The bodies continue to stack up like firewood here in Querétaro -- which we mean literally, since Querétaro is actually quite warm in the wintertime, and no one uses firewood. A 38-year-old guy in El Marqués has succumbed to H1N1 virus, bringing the state's total body count for the epidemic up to two (2). We may have mentioned that the population of the state is 1.5 million.

Two.

Quelling the Large Cohort

Because it's always fun to chart the aligning stars of right-wing craziness, we were glad to receive this email from one of the anti-immigrant wackos placing themselves firmly within the "birther" camp, which is so damn crazy even hardcore crazies like Ann Coulter think they're crazy.

Still, we think it's kind of sweet how they try to use big words, while managing to misspell the name of the US president throughout.

The [Southern Poverty Law Center's] most recent call for Lou Dobbs to be fired was in response to Dobbs making the following statement on his radio show regarding the birth certificate and Constitutional eligibility of President Barrack [sic] Obama.

Lou Dobbs did not take a position on President Obama's Constitutional eligibility to serve as President as a natural born citizens [sic]. Lou Dobbs simply said "President Obama needs to "produce a birth certificate".

American citizens of all walks of life are regularly made to provide a copy of their original birth certificate for jobs, licenses, passports, and other documents. Therefore, it is completely reasonable that President Barrack [sic] Hussein Obama should do the same to quell the large cohort of citizens that have serious questions about his eligibility to serve in an arena where there should be no doubts!

The idea of Obama not only out of office, but being deported has got to be almost aphrodisiacal for these folks.

Pleasantville

The Citizen's Institute for Insecurity Studies - which sounds like something you'd find in one of the early, funny Woody Allen films, but is really just our clunky translation of the word Inseguridad that Mexicans use to refer to crime and the conditions leading to crime - recently put out a survey on robbery in Mexico, in which we learn that the state of Querétaro, population 1.5 million, experiences 23 robberies "of all types" every day. We take that to mean everything from car thefts, to break-ins, to shoplifting, purse snatching, etc. Did we mention that the population here is a million and a half? Often, when we lived in New York, we would personally be robbed 23 times in a single day, which means Querétaro is just laughably safe, given that robbery is by far the biggest criminal threat here.

And yet every few months the city announces another disbursal of automatic weapons and body armor to the local police. We also noticed that the Green Party did surprisingly well in the last election, despite basically being a single-issue party, that issue being the imposition of the death penalty. We suppose if someone stole our iPod, we'd want to see them hanged, too.

Last year, 17,623 criminal complaints were filed with the local authorities here, which, when averaged out for population was the 14th-lowest in the nation (out of 32 states). Weirdly, that means we're more dangerous than Sinaloa (8th-lowest) and Guerrero (6th-lowest), which just goes to show you the kind of results you get when you filter out federal offenses like decapitating soldiers and rival drug gangs.

Police Blotter

Yesterday evening over on Av. Universidad, an incredibly drunk guy by the name of Martín Jiménez Ramos went hurtling down the road in his Volkswagen Jetta, and crashed into another car. Miraculously, no one was injured. Jiménez then decided it was a good idea to try to flee the scene on foot, only to discover he was a little too liquored up. So instead he held his ground, refusing to cooperate with the cops - even spitting on one of them - while darkly hinting that he knew "important people."

Which is probably true, since Jiménez is the mayor of the nearby town of Tolimán.

"Minutes later," Diario de Querétaro reports, "the mayor's legal representatives arrived, offering to pay for the damages and work out an agreement, so that the matter did not reach the Public Ministry." And so that was that and they all lived happily ever after, the end. Nothing to see here folks, move along.

Bottleneck

We mentioned a roadrace yesterday that started and finished near our offices (and, more importantly, involved a DJ screaming into an echoing loudspeaker from 730AM to noon). It was in fact a half-marathon and, astonishingly, since we seldom see anyone else out running during the mandatory morning calisthenics, 850 people showed up for the damn thing.

Even more amazingly, as you can see in the picture below, the race organizers decided, less than 600 meters into the race, to route the field of eight hundred and fifty runners down a narrow pedestrian walkway with a very large tree planted right in the middle of it.


That's the kind of thing that, if we'd known about it in advance, would have made the god-awful Sunday morning racket worth the hassle.

Memorial to the Unknown Wetback

Today was one of those days that started with a 6AM wakeup call from a woman saying she was standing outside the house watching the spare cat struggle to claw his way back inside, segued into a throbbing disco soundtrack from a roadrace that was starting and finishing up the hill from us (which lasted four hours), and ended with the dog deciding that the contents of the cats' litter box might have nutritional value. We're blaming the solar eclipse and that strange new spot on Jupiter.

So it seemed an excellent day for a road trip, and we pretty much chose the tiny municipality of Huimilpan at random. We've mentioned this before, but it's always amazing how little you have to drive outside Querétaro - like maybe 20 miles - before you hit really rural cowboy territory. Huimilpan is a town we always see referred to as "hard hit" by migration. About 20% of the town's population is in the US at any one time, which we can assume to equal more than half the working-age men. So important is work in El Norte that in the middle of the town's central plaza they've erected an eight-foot statue of a baseball cap-and-backpack wearing mojado. The sculpture has no plaque or description. If you live in that area, you don't need one.

As far as the "hard hit" part goes, though, it's kind of hard to tell from an afternoon day trip. (Stephanie Elizondo Griest's Mexican Enough has a pretty good chapter on Huimilpan, if you're interested in something deeper than a blog post.) But the must-have status symbol for anyone who's been to the US is a ginormous pickup truck with US plates, tricked out with what dealers call the "complete option package." (This is a common thing in the Sierra and probably most of Mexico - many towns have a "truck parade" around Easter time when everyone comes back to see their families.) This has the effect of making Huimilpan look just insanely prosperous - we think we can say without appearing to brag that we earn a lot more in a good year than the average illegal immigrant day laborer, and we found ourselves feeling terribly self-conscious about our piece of crap used car.

But then - with the caveat that, you know, who are we to say how a guy should spend his money - we can't help thinking there may be a better way for migrant worker to spend 30 grand.

Party Like It's 1999

Despite our best intentions, we never did get around to the going to the Anniversary Bullfight yesterday. But the fact that today's articles about it all note that it was in honor of the city's 468th Anniversary make it clear that the organizers stuck to their story.


Two of the words we have the most trouble keeping straight are sixty (sesenta) and seventy (setenta). We're usually okay with the actual numerals, though.

Damned if You Do

We promised to bring you news of the Diocese's exorcism press conference, but it seems that nothing newsworthy happened - by Querétaro standards, we mean, since in most of the world the fact that one's local diocese had called an exorcism-related press conference would be considered news in its own right. Anyway, Noticias finally ran a small piece [no link, sorry] informing us that exorcisms are on the rise, and that the Church performs about fifty a week. (A non-crack-addicted editor might have made the reporter clarify whether that number referred to the city of Querétaro or, like, the entire world. But there we are.)

While children are exorcised from time to time, the vast majority of subjects are women between the ages of 18 and 50. "The Monsignor said it was unknown why the demons preferred to inhabit women," said the story, which goes to show that The Monsignor really doesn't spend a whole lot of time around the ladies.

Like, a Virgen!

We're still waiting for our socialistically-imposed free house painting from the city of Querétaro - or we were, until we noticed the miraculous peeling paint-chip under the front window. We immediately called IMPLAN and canceled the painters.


The QPD has, of course, closed the street to traffic now, to better accommodate the pilgrims. And, no, you may not use the bathroom.

Happy Days Are Here Again

You may recall us introducing you to the colorful local weirdo named Ánimo a few weeks ago, as he rode around town in his familiar white Oldsmobuick Piece-o-Shit, rallying the townfolk to the PRI cause. He was probably one of the most vociferous and indefatigable PRI cheerleaders here in the Centro and, of course, the PRI, despite its well-known history of spectacular corruption, bribery and political patronage, won the governor's office pretty decisively here.

We're sure that all of this is absolutely unrelated to the fact that we just saw Ánimo doing his usual honking, whistling and screaming of "ánimo!!" from behind the wheel of a brand new BMW Z3 convertible. It was probably left to him by a rich aunt or something.


The Burro Hall editorial board would like to point out to governor-elect Calzada that it was only the constitutional clause barring foreigners from participation in politics here that prevented this page from issuing a full-throated endorsement of his candidacy. And - apropos of nothing - that the transmission on our nine-year-old Ford Explorer has been giving us a little trouble lately.

Young Guns

As we understand it, this is the plot of the next Harry Potter.

Mexico 'narco junior' teenagers escape jail

TIJUANA, Mexico, July 23 (Reuters) - Seventeen teenagers, many accused of working as hitmen for drug gangs, escaped from a juvenile detention center near the U.S. border on Thursday after digging through an outer wall, police said.

The boys, suspected young drug cartel members often dubbed "narco juniors," scraped a large hole through a brick wall using an iron rod at bedtime in the center in Tijuana, across the border from San Diego, California, a police spokesman said.

"They made a hole and no one noticed. Then they hit two guards with the rod and made it through the wall," said the spokesman for Baja California state police, who asked not to be quoted by name.

Burro Hall Car Seat Giveway Madness!!

Another week, another candidate for a complimentary child car seat courtesy of Burro Hall Enterprises, S.A.


What makes this one so delightful is that they're driving the wrong way down a one-way street.

Another Reason We Think the Mexican Moon Landing Was Faked

Because they still can't quite get their shit together on regular air travel.

Several Mexican discount airlines have recently been grounded because of safety violations, and regulators are closely watching other financially strapped airlines that often carry American tourists and others on domestic routes.

Four airlines, including one that operates in the USA, have been grounded since 2007 after failing maintenance checks. Violations included hydraulic fluid leaks, scrapes on outer skins, and insufficient pilot training.

The carriers that have recently been grounded by the government include:

•Azteca Airlines, where inspectors found airplanes with engines that did not match the serial numbers in their logbooks, "disorganization in ramp procedures" and shortcomings in training for pilots, mechanics and cargo loaders...the airline never flew again.

•Republic Air, a charter company that was shut down for good on April 23, 2007, after the transportation department said its inspectors found "evidence of deterioration" in its two Boeing 737-200s, among other failings.

•Aerocalifornia, which struggled financially after the non-fatal crash of a DC-9 in Mexico City on July 21, 2004. In 2006, regulators grounded all 21 of its planes over unspecified safety problems. ...It has not resumed flying.

•Magnicharters, which had two Boeing 737s land on their bellies within a year and half at the same airport in Guadalajara because the landing gear failed to come down... Mexican regulators grounded all of Magnicharters' planes June 10, 2008, after they failed a safety inspection. The suspension was lifted 13 days later after the problems were corrected. It is still operating.

•Aviacsa, which was barred from flying its fleet of 23 Boeing 737s on June 2 after a safety inspection. It resumed flying after a court overturned the suspension, but it was then grounded again this month because of unpaid air-traffic-control fees.

Aviacsa is working hard to correct the safety problems, by which we mean they're sending their employees into the street to "hand out anti-government fliers."

Oh, To Be An Accredited Journalist Again!

We very much regret that won't be able to send a reporter to the press conference on exorcism being held by the Diocese of Querétaro this afternoon, but we promise to keep you informed, barring any demonic possession here at our offices.

Meanwhile, here's a video that makes "Tubular Bells" seem a lot less sinister. Context is everything, we suppose.

Capricornio Uno

We've been busy working for The Man today. But here's a recently de-classified photo of the first Mexican moon landing.


Personally, we think the whole thing was faked.

One Giant Hat for Mankind

This looks like the kind of thing we'd Photoshop, but it's from the NASA Image Archive.

9/23/69: The Apollo 11 astronauts, Neil A. Armstrong, Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr., and Michael Collins, wearing sombreros and ponchos [sic], are swarmed by thousands in Mexico City as their motorcade is slowed by the enthusiastic crowd. The GIANTSTEP-APOLLO 11 Presidential Goodwill Tour emphasized the willingness of the United States to share its space knowledge. The tour carried the Apollo 11 astronauts and their wives to 24 countries and 27 cities in 45 days.

Aldrin (center) looks like he'd much rather be back in the barren, inhospitable environs of the Moon, doesn't he?

Whitey On The Moon

Mexico, always thinking in terms of the Conquista...



El Universal 7/21/69.

In Which I Make the Historic Moon Landing All About Me

There's nothing I enjoy more than moon landing anniversaries and nostalgia. Not because the moon landing itself was such a great achievement (the Apollo program having netted us about 800 pounds of rocks and some really cool photographs), or because I can imagine myself riding up there in their place (seriously, I couldn't even begin to list all the overlapping phobias that a flight to the moon would trigger in me). No, I love it because the moon landing is the very earliest thing I can remember and so, to the extent that memory and consciousness and simply being aware of your own existence are all linked, July 20, 1969 is sort of like my mind's birthday. And now, sadly, even that part of me is middle-aged.

Of course, I don't remember anything about the moon landing itself. That part's been filled in by repeated viewings over the years (especially on...anniversaries!) But what I do remember is being woken up by my mother and being brought downstairs to watch tv - an enormous wood-paneled piece of furniture that was always referred to as "the console" rather than the tv - and admonished to pay attention, because this was important. I also vaguely recall being irritated by the whole thing, since it was after 10PM and I was barely two years old. The irony of my earliest memory being a slightly unpleasant one involving television news (specifically CBS) has never been lost on me.

I've always been slightly bemused at my parents' instinct to wake me up that night - did they think this wouldn't be repeated at a more respectable a hour? But I guess, unlike, say, Robert Kennedy's funeral, which you could have gone to in person, the moon landing could only be experienced on tv (unless you were Neil Armstrong or Buzz Aldrin, of course), and live was better than re-run, so thanks to some quick thinking and selflessness on their part (for which I'm sure they were rewarded with a dirty diaper and a crying baby), I can say, "oh, yeah, the moon landing...I was there."

Anyway, in the expert opinion of Someone Who Was There, I think the great neglected story of the day was Michael Collins, the one who stayed up aboard the Columbia. While his two pals were showboating around on the lunar surface, Collins was in orbit, at times as much as 3,000 miles away and out of radio contact, making him by far the loneliest, most physically isolated person in human history up to that point. I've always thought that was a much more interesting achievement.

(Though hardly a 'holy...living...fuck' kind of moment...)

Typecast Again!

In what has got to be one of the strangest bits of casting since someone decided Erin Brockovich was a dead ringer for Julia Roberts, Johnny Depp - a man so ludicrously handsome that even we have no problem acknowledging it - has been tapped to play the horrifically unattractive Mexican general Pancho Villa in an upcoming movie. We suppose that with John Candy, Zero Mostel and Fatty Arbuckle all dead and gone, Depp is the only choice that makes sense.

Some Crazy Religious Shit

In the category of Events We Wish We'd Known About in Advance Because We Definitely Would Have Attended, the National Congress of Exorcists just finished up their fourth annual meeting last Friday in Cuahutitlán Izcalli, Edomex. The participants' 3500 peso fee covered room and board for the four-day conference, "coffee during breaks," and a souvenir DVD of the conference. (That last item, we're offering 3500 pesos for, in case any of our exorcist readers would be willing to part with one.) And lest you think this is some fringe-y group of superstitious weirdos, the conference's opening mass was presided over by the Archbishop of Mexico, Cardinal Norberto Rivera. (If you click that last link, you'll notice some stray bits of code showing up of the conference program. We assume that's attributable to demonic possession.)

Meanwhile, in more down-to-earth religious news, the annual Querétaro-to-Tepeyac "We Love the Virgin of Guadalupe" pilgrimage (which seems to happen about five times a year) is in full swing, despite the womens pilgrimage (they're segregated) being canceled this year due to swine flu concerns. Because Mexico's done such a great job being proactive on the flu, we can't criticize this on the merits, but it does show a tremendous lack of faith in the protective grace of La Santisima Virgen on the part of the Asociación de Peregrinas de Querétaro, doesn't it?

Of course, maybe the Virgen can't protect the peregrinas here because she's too busy showing up in shit stains north of the border. And before you send a squad of exorcists to punish us for our blasphemy, we swear to God we're not making that up. A bird - a miraculous bird! - took a miraculous shit on the side-mirror of a pickup truck belonging to Mexican-American family in Bryan, Texas, and said shit stain has miraculously taken the form a the Virgin of Guadalupe. And - predictably, rather than miraculously - hundreds of faithful are staging their own pilgrimages to Our Lady of the Blessed and Holy Bird Poop.

The Pachucas say the image is more than a coincidence especially since it happened on the 12th. The family says in Mexico, December 12 is celebrated as the day of The Virgin Guadalupe.

They've got a point. The chances of a bird shitting on your truck on the 12th is like 1-in-30! What greater proof do you need?

Don't just read the article, though. The power of Christ compels you to watch the video, which is so completely, deadly earnest that we're still not 100% convinced it isn't a joke, and which says as much about local news in Bryan, TX, as it does about Mexico.

As of this writing, the readers poll has 92% saying the Holy Shit Stain is "not a miracle." This simply means that a mere 8% of KBTX's viewers are Mexican.

They Know Their History

A few days ago we were making fun of the upcoming bullfight in honor of the "468th Anniversary of the founding of Querétaro" - which in fact happened 478 years ago - and we said:

What will be interesting to us is to see whether they just stick to this 468 thing for the duration of the bullfight. Presumably the posters have already been printed up.

Sure enough...


We're not really fans of the rejoneadores (bullfighters on horseback), but now we just have to attend this thing, if only to see how locked in to the "468 Anniversary" they really are (a banner hanging from the president's box; a big "468" made of flowers; the mayor making a short speech about "468 magnificent years"...etc).

They're G-r-r-r-r-oss!

Bachelor Week* is winding down here and, as usually happens in the later stages, we spent the morning down on our hands and knees in the pantry fighting over whatever edible scraps the mice may have left behind, when we came across an 8-pack of individual-size breakfast cereals left over by a couple of recent visitors in the coveted 10-and-under demographic. They were all Kellogg's products - not surprising, since the company's Latin American HQ is just five miles from our own. We recognized Tony the Tiger - El Tigre Toño - but something seemed a little... off. The Frosted Flakes looked to be made of chocolate...sugar-frosted chocolate of course. And they were sprinkled with... with... marshmallows? Jesus H fucking Christ, what kind of an abomination is this?

Like testicle-shrinking Coca-Cola, Chocolate-Flavored Frosted Flakes with Marshmallows is one of those products an American corporation wouldn't dare try to sell at home. According to the company's own "nutritional" information, a 35-gram serving of these little death bombs contains 16 grams of sugar. That means this crap is 46 percent sugar. Of course, because we were really, really hungry (and more than a little curious), we ate the whole mini-box, and were predictably disgusted by it. Amazingly, this is because we didn't think the company took the "candy for breakfast" concept far enough. For all the chocolaty marshmallowy gooiness, they still tasted pretty distinctly of toasted corn. If that's not making sense to you, try this: the next time you're about to dig in to your favorite chocolate dessert, simultaneously help yourself to some corn on the cob. Disgusted? Good. Now try it for breakfast.

About three hours later, we noticed our leg was still jiggling uncontrollably. Also, we think we may be experiencing the onset of type-2 diabetes.

Our biggest concern here is, of course, geopolitical: as smug as we've been about America's primacy in the Fat-ass race, we had no idea that young Mexican butterballs were starting their days quite so unhealthily. This is a game-changer, America. Time to wake up.

* [Yes, the main cat is female, but she hides in the closet all day, so she's not really ruining the dudefest.]

Lethally Blonde

Seattle Weekly's Rick Anderson has a good cover story about our favorite anti-immigrant extremist, Shawna Forde.

Long before she was accused of robbing and murdering a Mexican man and his 9-year-old daughter in the Arizona desert, exposing the modern American Minuteman movement to accusations of racial warfare; and long before she told her followers that, as a white woman, she saw brown-skinned immigrants as filthy, lowly lawbreakers, Shawna Forde was climbing into a car in Seattle to allegedly have illegal sex with a man named Rodriguez.

We're sure this happens all the time, actually. Go read the whole thing.

An Open Letter to the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR)

Amigos,

We notice it's been about two years since you managed to grab some headlines with the bold, albeit largely pointless, gesture of blowing up the gas pipelines that supply our fair city. Happy anniversary.

We don't know what you've got on the agenda for Summer '09, and we're certainly not trying to put any ideas in your heads, but there are these gas trucks that circulate around the Centro early in the morning blasting a hideous, super-fucking-annoying corporate jingle. They must pass by our offices five or six times a day, starting around 8:00 in the morning. The company - again, apropos of absolutely nothing, just making conversation here - is headquartered out on 5 de Febrero. They got a lot of trucks there, and what look to be some pretty massive propane tanks.


We're hardly experts in the field of demolition and detonation, but we imagine this place would light up like an exceedingly telegenic Christmas tree. And to the extent that winning hearts and minds is important to you, the ensuing early-morning silence here in the Centro would probably earn you a bit more gratitude than your previous idea of depriving the populace of hot water and the ability to cook food for half a week.

Anyhoo, we're just kinda spitballing ideas here, brainstorming in a non-accessory-to terrorism kind of way, y'know, and thought you might find this kind of intriguing.

Atentemente,

Burro Hall

See Also: Capone, Al, Tax-Evasion Conviction of

From CNN:

Mexican police have arrested a "highly dangerous" U.S. citizen wanted on weapons charges, the Michoacan state attorney's office said.

Robert Hamlin Wainwright, 66, was arrested in the city of Zamora at the request of the U.S. Marshal's Office in Tucson, Arizona, the Mexican authorities said. He faces deportation.

Wainwright, a convicted child molester, also faces charges of discharging a pollutant into Indiana waters.

Monster!

A Day in the Life

"Turned on the TV this morning. Had this shit on about how we're living in a violent world. Showed all these foreign places, how foreigners live and all. I started thinking, man, either they don't know, don't show, or don't care about what's going on in the 'hood. They had all this foreign shit -- they didn't have shit on my brother, man."

-- Ice Cube, Boyz n the Hood

We're not entirely sure why this quote was the first thing that popped into our head, but there it was, as soon as we read that yesterday was the deadliest day so far in the so-called War on Drugs here - 53 people turned up dead in one 24-hour period. (And just to be clear, the previous record was only 5 months old, and only one body less. This is hardly Bob Beamon breaking the long jump record in Mexico City; we don't expect this one to last through the end of the year.)

Maybe what got us pissed off about this is that 53 is one corpse more than the 2005 bombings in London, which, four years later, is still commemorated with bagpipes, moments of silence, benefit concerts and the unveiling of a memorial sculpture in Hyde Park. Here, 53 dead was just another day. The total death toll for the year stands at about 3,700 - 20% higher than September 11, and yet we can't help but think that if most of the violence weren't taking place so close to the US border, it wouldn't be a story at all.

But we're not really complaining that the worldwide press didn't give a shit about yesterday's recod - hell, the article we linked to above was on page 17 of the Mexican newspaper. "Record Day, 53 Killed (see p.17)." That's the kind of thing you put in a time capsule, so future generations might understand how fucked things were.

Of course, since most of the violence is gang-on-gang stuff, the majority of the dead are, to use the technical term, total douchebags. But still, yesterday's toll included a magazine editor in Chihuahua, the mayor of Namiquipa, three handcuffed bodies in Nuevo Urecho, Michoacan, two women and a cop machine gunned in a pizzeria in Ecatepec, Estado de Mexico, Another cop in Guanajuato, and a 17-year old "ejecutada con el tiro de gracia" - executed by coup de grâce - in Guerrero. All so the United States can have a plentiful supply of cheap cocaine - a goal we totally support, by the way. We just wish there were a better way to go about this.

A Children's Treasury of Bleeding Drunkards

Regular readers probably know that, when it comes to bullfighting, we consider "I'm rooting for the bull!" to be synonymous with "I'm deliberately missing the point!" But running with the bulls is another story. There, our sympathies lie entirely with the majestic beasts, though this is mostly by default, motivated by our extreme hatred of throngs of drunken tourists. Here, then, is a selection of press photos from last week's San Fermines in Pamplona, in which the toros bravos score a few points off the amateurs on en route to being slain by professionals later in the day.





















(This one below is our personal favorite, not for the guy splayed across the bull's horns, but for the guy standing about six inches away, holding the morning newspaper and, it would seem, not even flinching. Our guess is that it's José Thomás.)

Bikini Update #3

Honestly, finding bikini shots of a Mexican beauty queen should be the easiest thing in the world. Perhaps we shouldn't have summarily fired the entire research staff after the election. But on the larger issue of who, exactly, is Miss Querétaro 2009, we can report that, for the second time in as many days, Diario de Querétaro says it's Alejandra Cabral Cabrera. While not directly referencing Noticias, DQ informs us that Paulina's name is not Paulina Evelyn Cabral Cabrera, but Paulina Cabrera Balderas, which, if anything, suggests that Mexico simply doesn't have enough surnames to go around. Paulina appears to have been first-runner up. Assuming all this is correct, we're curious to see if Noticias ever corrects its banner headline [right] and two-page article, in which they managed to get the name of the winner wrong. Nine times.

We also learn from DQ that the judges included a photographer, a plastic surgeon and an "empresario" which, in our minds, considerably ups the creepiness factor of the whole enterprise. The article's prose about the "the black, two-piece swimsuits showing off their feminine qualities" is best left unremarked on.

Friends in High Places

The gatos have lately developed a strange aversion to the Earth's surface. The spare cat favors a perch on top of the cabinet over our editor's desk, which he ascends to by sitting on the desk and then kind of floating upwards and forward, like Chow Yun Fat in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.



Meanwhile, the main cat makes her fortress of solitude on the top shelf of the upstairs closet. We have no idea how she gets there.



The perro, whom gravity taunts almost to the point of cruelty, still spends most of his days lying pancake-flat on the floor.

Anniversaries

According to the local paper, there is a special bullfight two Saturdays from now "commemorating the 468th anniversary of the founding of Querétaro" - which, as any gringo tourist knows, took place on July 25, 1531. We were planning to write a smart-assed post suggesting that, unless the bullfight is being held in a parallel universe where it's always 1999, it's really a bullfight in honor of the 10th anniversary of the 468th anniversary of the founding of Querétaro. But picking on the local papers is kind of a cheap sport, and we thought better of it - until we saw a bullfighting website reporting the same thing, with pictures from the press conference, which lead us to the only possible conclusion: that the queretanos responsible for an event in honor of the city's founding threw a press conference in which they got the date of the city's founding (which, being an event in honor of the anniversary of the city's founding, is not an incidental bit of trivia but, rather, the central fact driving the press conference) wrong, and the assembled queretano press - and their supervisors and copy editors - simply ran with the incorrect number.

Which seems like nitpicking, of course, except that we're always being told - and we believe it to be true - that "Mexicans know their history." What will be interesting to us is to see whether they just stick to this 468 thing for the duration of the bullfight. Presumably the posters have already been printed up.

We probably wouldn't have paid much attention to this except we were already scratching our heads over another bit of Mexican history - the 150th Anniversary of the Reform Laws, which, though you might never know it if you were waiting for any sort of public or official acknowledgment, is actually today.

It's hard to think of another country that was so heavily controlled by a religious entity (in this case, the Catholic Church) and that so radically and suddenly handed that entity a steaming platter of Shut the Fuck Up the way Mexico did 150 years ago today. The law passed on July 12, 1859, [excerpted below] basically nationalized all Church property (with the exception of actual churches) and suppressed religious orders. Additional laws nationalized cemeteries, separated Church and State, made births, deaths and marriages civil functions and allowed other religions to exist. Regardless of whether one feels this was just (and the violence that followed in the wake of this is enough to give even our atheistic hearts a slight pause), it was an enormous event in the history of this country, an unquestionable boon to the modernization of the nation, and is, for reasons we don't fully understand, being completely ignored on its sesquicentennial.

Law of July 12, 1859,

Art. 5. All the male religious orders which exist throughout the republic, whatever their name or the purpose of their existence, are hereby suppressed throughout the whole republic, as also all archconfraternities, confraternities, congregations, or sisterhoods annexed to the religious communities cathedrals parishes, or any other churches.

Art. 6. The foundation or erection of new convents of regulars, archconfraternities, confraternities, congregations, or sisterhoods, under whatever form or name is given them, is prohibited, likewise the wearing of the garb or habit of the suppressed orders.

Art. 7. By this law the ecclesiastics of the suppressed orders are reduced to the condition of secular clergy, and shall, like these, be subject as regards the exercise of their ministry to the ordinaries of their respective dioceses.

Art. 12. All books, printed or manuscript, paintings, antiquities, and other articles belonging to the suppressed religious communities shall be given to museums, lyceums, libraries, and other public establishments...All novitiates for women are perpetually closed. Those at present in novitiates cannot be professed.

All Hail Someone Who May or May Not Be the Queen

We promised you bikini pictures of Miss Querétaro, though it's proving a lot more complicated than we expected. Below is the only bikini photo to have run in any of the four local newspapers and, of course, it's uncaptioned, so the best we can do is tell you that, facially, she bears a pretty close resemblance to the woman who picked up the crown, so we'd wager (though not heavily) that this is Miss Querétaro - or, as Noticias described her, "our new sovereign":


Apparently, costume-padding has been outlawed at the Miss Q contest.

If you noticed we're being vague about the identity of Our New Sovereign, well, it seems that two of the nine hopefuls were surnamed Cabral Cabrera, a fact we attribute to one of three possible reasons: 1) it's a hell of a coincidence; 2) of the nine prettiest girls in a state of a million and a half people, two are sisters; 3) it's simply untrue, and someone wrote the names down wrong. Anyway, the upshot of this is that Diario de Querétaro is reporting that Alejandra Evelyn Cabral Cabrera is the new Miss Q, while Noticias (which is not online) has an entire spread devoted to Paulina Evelyn Cabral Cabrera's night of victory.

We'll be working around the clock on this scandal and will bring you news as we get it. Though if Paulina and Alejandra turn out to be identical twins, posting will be light as we work on our screenplay.

Dept. of Good Thinking

What could possibly go wrong?

A large percentage of men who regularly have sex with prostitutes in Tijuana do not use condoms and have a history of drug and alcohol abuse, according to a binational study published Friday in the online journal AIDS.

The researchers said that Tijuana has a "thriving" prostitution trade and though local authorities regularly test registered "sex workers" for AIDS, only about half of prostitutes have registered or been tested.

More than half of the men had had unprotected sex within the last four months, the researchers found. The average customer is 36 years old, unmarried and visits prostitutes more than 25 times a year.

Many reported being under the influence of drugs, particularly methamphetamine, while having sex with a prostitute.

QRO/BKLN

Our mission (or, if you'll excuse us while we show off a little in Spanish, our raison d'être) -- strengthening ties between Brooklyn and Mexico -- scored a major, unexpected success this week right here in our own backyard, with an exhibition in the Plaza de Armas of photographs by Ricardo Azarcoya, titled "The New York Soul." Though we don't believe the soul of New York to be quite as Hasidic and homosexual as Azarcoya does, we decided to read his choice of subject matter as a coded message of solidarity directed at Burro Hall. Hasidim, after all, tend to be located in Brooklyn, and the Gay Pride parade usually happens on the weekend of our birthday.

And of the 468 subways stations in New York City, we noticed only one made it into the exhibition:


Can there be any doubt that someone's trying to curry favor? Could a Sister Cities request be far behind?

Tonight's the Night

Tonight, at an undisclosed - or at least really poorly-advertised - location somewhere in town, Miss Querétaro 2009 will be chosen from the bevy of interchangeable broadcasting and communications majors (Tania, Daniela, Alejandra, Venus, María Guadalupe, Maricarmen, Jessica, Yenisei and Paulina) pictured at right. Burro Hall will bring you all her vital stats, likes and dislikes, and of course bikini pictures, as soon as we have them.

In other pageant news, visitors to Cancún next week will be able to check out the Miss Spain Pageant. If they're very lucky, they may even learn why the Miss Spain Pageant is being held somewhere that isn't, um, Spain.

Update: Our sources are telling us that Miss Querétaro 2009 is Alejandra Cabral Cabrera, whom we believe is the third future-weathergirl from the left. More news as it breaks.

Sunday Morning Update: Christ, this is like trying to get information about CIA interrogation methods. Diario de Querétaro, having had two days to put its story together, informs us that Srta. Cabral is 19 years old, and stands 5'6" tall. Nice work, Woodstein!

Casa del Atrio

Just a quick note of local interest: if you're in the Centro, go check out Querétaro's newest art gallery/boutique hotel/soon-to-be café, La Casa del Atrio, which had its grand opening last night, and promises to make this town wicked classy, as we say in Boston.

Totally Wasted

Mother Jones has a series of Drug War-related articles in its latest issue, including one very brief and modest contribution from yr. humble corresp., which somehow wound up with the most inflammatory title in the package.



Update: Related, from today's Post:

The Mexican army has carried out forced disappearances, acts of torture and illegal raids in pursuit of drug traffickers, according to documents and interviews with victims, their families, political leaders and human rights monitors.

Hands Across the Water

Since the whole reason this blog exists is to build bridges between Mexico and Brooklyn (okay, so the rationale changes a lot - it's like the Iraq War of blogs, in that sense), we were delighted to see this piece in the old hometown paper about a Mexican-born photographer exhibiting his pictures of the Mighty Gowanus Canal. This is a definite short-lister for Quote of the Year:

These sights might drive others away. For Mr. Gaytan, they set off reveries of his childhood in 1950s Mexico.

“When I was growing up in Juárez, my grandfather was a handyman who took me on jobs with him,” Mr. Gaytan said. “The first thing he would do was go to the junkyards in Juárez to buy toilets and things he would clean and fix to sell to the people across the border in El Paso. I used to play in those junkyards. That aroma is embedded in my brain: a mix of sewage, kerosene and oil. That’s what the Gowanus brought back to me. My childhood.”

We'll leave it to partisans on each side to decide which city this quote flatters.

The Wall

We'll just note we've been calling for this for over three years now.

Mexico Builds Border Wall To Keep Out US Assholes

The Day After

We realize that election results are supposed to be breaking news but (a) we know you don't really give a shit about Querétaro's local elections, and (b) we felt the need to fire most of the Burro Hall polling staff this morning, and things got a little heated. (Yeah, chain yourselves to the door handles - brilliant move, Einstein! You should have seen their faces when we took the doors off the hinges and threw them out the window. Hey, don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way down!)

Anyway, despite this page's repeated prediction that PAN was going to cruise to victory, they got about as much of a spanking as men are allowed to give each other in public here. The new governor of Querétaro will be former bullfighter, fanatical runner and big pimpin' guayabera-wearer Pepe Calzada. We know little about his policies and proposals, except that his father was governor way back whenever. And speaking of family, meet the new, almost-legal First Daughter of the State of Querétaro:


That's right, that always classy Rotativo named her "Chica of the Weeka" a few weeks back. That seemed as good a reason as any to vote for the guy. Even though we've been here for some time, it's hard, as outsiders, to really assess whether the state is well-run. It seems to be, insofar as it's clean, it's safe, and there's hardly talk of revolution in the air. But are the schools well run? Public health services adequate? Taxes reasonable? Honestly, we don't really know. But there seems to be genuine excitement about at the prospect of change - though it also says a lot that the party that ran the country as a virtual dictatorship for 71 years is suddenly viewed as a breath of fresh air around here.

To us, the most interesting story will be how it was that Calzada won by four points after most polls showed him down by over 20. (Not that anyone in the polling dept. is getting their job back, of course. We're just curious.)

PRI also picked up the majority of the state's seats in congress, echoing similar gains around the country. PAN held on to the mayor's office here - the next mayor of Querétaro will be some punk named Pancho, who's welcome to apply for a job with us as soon as he gets a couple years seasoning.

Ánimo has not been officially named to a cabinet position, but we're hoping secretary of public health.

Party in My Pants

From the site Bad Paintings of Barack Obama comes this image, which we think is supposed to be the 4th of July picnic at the White House, set in the very near future, after the Mexican Reconquista of the United States.


We believe the 13 pairs of Fruit-of-the-Loom briefs represent each of the 13 original colonies.

Not Fade Away

Happy Mary Gorman Day!

The Year of the Cat

It was a year ago today that the filthy little bag of parasites we christened Juan Pablo II washed up on the doorstep of Burro Hall. Since his initial seven dollar vet consultation and $50 neutering, he's cost us roughly $900 in premium catfood and lost collars and nametags. We read somewhere these things can live for 20 years.

All Quiet On the Southern Front

For all the weirdness around here, there are a lot of thing Mexicans do in a far more civilized way than we do up in El Norte. With three days to go before election day, the cacophony in the US is usually unbearable. Here - where on a daily basis the cacophony is unbearable - it's just the opposite. Jornadas de refléxion - days of reflection - begin today. Nobody campaigns. everybody....we dunno, reflects, we suppose. It's kind of nice, except when we get to the Jornadas sin alcohol, when the bars close early the night before, and remain closed throughout election day. If a valid US passport is good for anything around here - and it's not - it should be good to prove that we're not voting and would like a very cold, very dry martini, up, with olives.

A few weeks ago we mentioned the beloved local oddball Ánimo, who'd been recruited into the PRI campaign around here. Setting up one of those motion-triggered cameras like they use to photograph leopards in the veld, we got this rare shot of the man doing his thing.


We very much doubt the Days of Reflection mean Ánimo will be keeping silent this weekend. It would, we believe, be a first.

Shawna Forde: Mainstream Wacko

One thing we've been hearing over and over since the border patrolling loon Shawna Forde and a couple of her compatriots gunned down a sleeping man and his 9-year-old daughter (allegedly to rob them of drug money which would be used to finance their vigilante activities) is that, even by the bargain-basement standards of sanity among the anti-immigrant crowd, she was considered someone to shunned, like some Amish girl who won't part with her iPod. As it turns out, they really only started to shun her after she blew a little girl's head off.

Shawna Forde was a rogue, many border-security activists say, or an impostor or a criminal.

But interviews with so-called Minutemen and their critics, as well as reviews of recently scrubbed Web sites, suggest Forde was well-placed in the border-security movement and represented a persistent radical wing. ...

Jim Gilchrist, founder of the Minuteman Project and an early leader of the movement, said last week that he donated $200 to a member of Forde's group, that he called Forde a few days after the murders as investigators closed in, and that his group removed postings by and about Forde from its Web site after the arrests. But he called Forde and her associates "rogues," and denied that he or his group had a formal relationship with her.

"They happened to use the Minuteman movement as a guise, as a mask," he said.

Glenn Spencer, founder of the American Border Patrol and another prominent figure in the anti-illegal-immigration movement, posted an Internet account of Forde's arrest titled "Full Disclosure About Shawna Forde." She was arrested minutes after leaving Spencer's house near Sierra Vista.

He said Forde had dropped in uninvited on June 12 and asked to use a room in the house, which doubles as American Border Patrol's offices, to write an e-mail, then left.

"Being a polite person, I spoke with her, even though last summer I told American Border Patrol employees that, due to her strange behavior, she was no longer welcome at the ranch," Spencer wrote. "This is an object lesson about understanding with whom you are dealing in the border volunteer effort."

But former American Border Patrol employee Michael Christie, who left the group in February, said radicals such as Forde were a persistent part of the movement.

"This movement attracts people who are desperate to be a part of something big," Christie said. "These are people who are discontented with their lives for one reason or another, who have probably tried to make a difference in other aspects of their lives and failed." ...

As Forde made forays into other groups, she formed an association with Gilchrist, the founder of the Minuteman Project. She posted reports from the border on his Web site, and they defended each other publicly from critics.

In July 2008, Forde wrote about Gilchrist, identifying herself as "Operations Director For The Project," and saying, "The Project has worked closely with MAD (Minutemen American Defense) for several years now."

On Feb. 23, the day after Forde's hometown newspaper, the Everett (Wash.) Herald, published an exposé of Forde's background, Gilchrist defended her in an Internet posting.

"In my experience with Ms. Forde I conclude that she is no whiner. She is a stoic struggler who has chosen to put country, community, and a yearning for a civilized society ahead of avarice and self-glorifying ego."

"The Minuteman Project is proud to be a supporter of Shawna Forde's Minutemen (women) American Defense (M.A.D.)"

On June 2, three days after the murders, Gilchrist received an e-mail from a Southern Arizona associate who had been visited by investigators looking for Forde. Gilchrist forwarded the e-mail to Forde, he said.

He said he called her and asked if there was a warrant for her arrest. She said no.

But after roaming Southern Arizona for another nine or so days, she was picked up outside Spencer's home.

Of course, we hate to refer to groups like Gilchrist as "mainstream," but they're at least allegedly on the non-homicidal side of crazy. We think. Maybe. Anyway, the beauty of these revelations is that the predictable fissures are starting to open among the nutters. This, from Americans for Legal Immigration, in our inbox this afternoon:

NOTE: We warned the nation and all group leaders, including Spencer and Gilchrist, about Shawna Forde many months before these murders. It is truly unfortunate that Gilchrist and others continued to offer Shawna support and aid long after all other groups and leaders in the movement did our best to isolate her. These latest articles show us that Gilchrist and Spencer assisted Shawna Forde after the date of the murders. If Jim Gilchrist and Glen Spencer had listened to the rest of the movement after Shawna Forde and Jim Gilchrist tried to circulate fake rape and beating pictures of Shawna, it would have been clear to Forde that she had no reason to be on Spencer's property or in regular phone and email contact with Jim Gilchrist (Co-Founder of Minuteman Project).

Fourth of July isn't much of a holiday here, but we're gonna pull up a blanket and enjoy the fireworks anyway.

The Surge Worked

As if Mexico hasn't had enough bad news this year, they country suffered a stunning setback today in its quest to unseat the United States as the Fattest Nation on the Face of God's Green Earth. Turns out obesity in the Unites States isn't just increasing, it's "surging!"

Obesity rates in the US have surged over the last year, a report shows.

The Trust for America's Health (TFAH) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation found adult obesity rates rose in 23 of the 50 states, but fell in none.

In addition, the percentage of obese and overweight children is at or above 30% in 30 states.

Thirty percent in 30 states! And this report was released before the summer ice-cream-and-video-games season even began. President Obama may want to challenge the nation: 50% in 50 States by 2050. What's that? Too great a challenge, you say? America's not up to task? I'm sorry, but could you speak up a little? Neil Armstrong can't hear you...because he's standing on the fucking moon right now.

"Our health care costs have grown along with our waist lines," says Dr. Jeff Levi, the author of the report and a man whose patriotism, we believe, is deeply suspect. "How are we going to compete with the rest of the world if our economy and workforce are weighed down by bad health?"

How are we going to compete? Hey, "doctor," why don't you ask Mexico how we're competing?